A New England Chef's Secret for Cooking Tons of Lobster

Chef Jasper White didn’t invent the clambake, but he did patent his system for cooking large amounts of lobster at Summer Shack in Boston. “I have a government patent on our lobster line,” he says. “Eight-gallon kettles with overhead joists and thousand-gallon lobster tanks.” Of course, that impressive contraption is not what makes the clambake so delicious. What makes it legendary is its contents: lobster, mussels, steamers, chorizo, new potatoes, corn on the cob and a hard-boiled egg. “The egg comes from an old trick for real clambakes on the beach,” White says. “Hide an egg in with the lobster. Once the egg is cooked, the lobster is cooked. I don’t need it—but I put it in for fun.”